We Are Already A United People Guided By A Common Culture, Spirituality, Belief And Values

[This is one of my old notes which I am republishing in the new Facebook notes feature]

As the debate on the removal of the totem poles at our Parliament House rages on, I would like to add my piece by leveraging off and stringing together some writings of the late Bernard Narokobi who is being described as perhaps one of the greatest Melanesian philosopher of the modern times.

I am sensing an undertone of other fellow citizens feeling sidelined and not well represented in the present architectural design of our Parliament House and what I think is a false consensus that unity will be achieved without the symbolism of one culture dominating over others. It is very unfortunate to feel marginalised like this. These are outlooks of defeat and despair, betraying an inability to not only appreciating but most importantly tolerating and transcending others' culture. It is also very inopportune that religious zeal is used to cloak these sentiments, acting as a front, in what will be a futile guise to try and unite an already united people of many cultures with the aim to drive change in beliefs and values.

If Papua New Guinea is a land of division, of disunity, of 800+ languages and thousands of cultures why did not we fragmented into tens of countries during the past 38 years of our independence?

Those who will stop to reflect will realise that in spite of our intergroup fights or this anguishing sense of being subjugated by one cultural group, it must be realised that Melanesian societies are non-exploitative, non-acquisitive and non-colonialist. It is true that one tribe or perhaps more might have practiced slavery and colonialism but on the whole our societies did not survive successfully this long, and in isolation from the outside world, by subduing other races or by ruling the waves or enslaving others to one religious belief or cultural practice.

As Melanesians we are not and have never been slaves to our cultural practices. If we believed these were obstructing us, we liberate ourselves by establishing new communities with new hopes and future.

Yet, as a Melanesian country, we are still united, guided by a common cultural and spiritual unity. Though diverse in many cultural practices, including languages and of course architecture, still we are united, and are different from Asians or Europeans. Our ways are not so varied and contradictory as many have claimed. Our unity springs not from the nation state, common currency, common banks, the police and the military. It is not even based on a common language. These facilitate unity, but they do not make it. We are a united people because of our common vision. True enough, it has never been written, but has evolved over thousands of years.

As Melanesians, we are a spiritual people. Even before Christians came onto our shores, we felt and knew the forces of a source greater than ourselves. From our spirituality, we had a communal vision of the cosmos. Our vision was not and still is not an artificially dichotomised and compartmentalised pragmatism of the secular society. Ours is a vision of totality, a vision of cosmic harmony. Our vision sees the human person in his totality with the spirit world as well as the animal and the plant world. This human person is not absolute master of the universe but an important component in an interdependent world of the person with the animal, the plant and the spiritual.

These are the basic truths about us as a people. To meaningfully associate with other people we must seek to understand them and their inherent virtues. Have we ever wondered why other countries, especially in the West, have centres dedicated to the studies of other peoples? I think that is so that they can mindfully interrelate with these people.

Similarly learning more about ourselves will present an opportunity to tolerate and transcend others' culture and will lead to provision of true contemporary Melanesian leadership in this time and age where the world is moving more and more towards a confused uniformity, monotony and insensitivity to the fine, subtle and sublime beauty of cultural diversity.

It is the simplistic imperialist who seeks uniformity as a technique to command obedience (and perhaps usher in the one-world-order that some Christians these days have been self-prophesying and scared about).

Considering the above and in my opinion the speaker and his advisers, in their 'head on' approach to change beliefs and values, have not done this mindfully. The outcome now is that the intention of removing our authentic totem poles and replacing them with a modern symbolic unity pillar, that is also rooted in a secular religion, is encountering a lot of resistance and criticisms in an increasingly contemporary and learned PNG society whose citizens are progressively seeing more and more through our mandated leaders' actions. The real motives of the do-gooders must be questioned. In this now more liberal world, we have a right to question the forces at work to change us.

For the proponents of these changes, the good news is that beliefs and values are not set in stone. We all change our beliefs as we go through life. The trick is to do it mindfully with clear intentions and some degree of interpersonal skill. The bad news, however, is that if you try to change other people's beliefs head on, we will probably resist.

People do not resist change, we change every day, but people do resist being changed in such a dramatic, intolerant and religiously zealous fashion these days.